A leaf from the Buddhist Collection

The Thief and the Master

One evening, Zen master Shichiri Kojun was reciting sutras when a thief entered his house with a sharp sword, demanding "money or life". Without any fear, Shichiri said, "Don't disturb me! Help yourself with the money, it's in that drawer". And he resumed his recitation. The thief was startled by this unexpected reaction, but he proceeded with his business anyway. While he was helping himself with the money, the master stopped and called, "Don't take all of it. Leave some for me to pay my taxes tomorrow".

The thief left some money behind and prepared to leave. Just before he left, the master suddenly shouted at him, "You took my money and you didn't even thank me?! That's not polite!". This time, the thief was really shocked at such fearlessness. He thanked the master and ran away. The thief later told his friends that he had never been so frightened in his life.

A few days later, the thief was caught and confessed, among many others, his theft at Shichiri's house. When the master was called as a witness, he said, "No, this man did not steal anything from me. I gave him the money. He even thanked me for it." The thief was so touched that he decided to repent. Upon his release from prison, he became a disciple of the master and many years later, he attained Enlightenment.

Treasure of Prophet Muhammad

One day a poor man brought a bunch of grapes to the holy prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him) as a gift. 

The holy prophet (pbuhf) ate one, two, three and then the whole bunch of grapes by himself. He did not offer grapes to anyone present. The poor man who brought those grapes was very pleased and left. One of the companions asked, "O prophet of Allah (peace be upon Him) ! How come you ate all the grapes by yourself and did not offer to any one of us present?

The holy Prophet (peace be upon Him) smiled and said, "I ate all the grapes by myself because the grapes were sour. If I would have offered you, you might have made funny faces and that would have hurt the feelings of that poor man. I thought to myself that it's better that I eat all of them cheerfully and please the poor man. I did not want to hurt the feelings of that poor man."

Such were the manners of this most noble prophet of Allah. 

Treasure from Hindu Mythology

A legend from the Ramayana speaks of King Bhagirath who once meditated before Lord Brahma for a thousand years for the salvation of the souls of his ancestors. Pleased with his devotion Brahma granted him a wish. He requested the Lord to send the river Ganges down to earth from heaven so that she could flow over his ancestors' ashes and wash their curse away and allow them to go to heaven.

Brahma granted his wish but asked him to pray to Shiva, for he alone could support the weight of her descent. Accordingly he prayed to Shiva and he allowed the Ganges to descend on his head, and after meandering through his thick matted locks, the holy river reached the earth. 

This story is re-enacted by bathing the 'linga'.

Japanese Ancient Story - Enough is Enough

The foxes which infested the house and grounds of Major Counselor Yasumichi's old mansion were always making mischief, but since they never really did any harm Yasumichi let the matter pass. They got naughtier and naughtier as the years went by, though, until one day he angrily decided that enough was enough. Those foxes would have to go.

He announced a grand fox hunt to his household, for the next day. The servants were to bring bows and arrows, sticks, or whatever weapons they could devise, and flush out every last one. They would surround the house, and men would be posted not only on the garden wall but on the roof as well, and even in the space between the ceiling of the rooms and the roof. Every fox that showed itself would be killed.

Near dawn on the fateful day Yasumichi had a dream. A white-haired old man, looking rather like an aged menial, was kneeling under the tangerine tree in the garden, bowing respectfully to him.

"Who are you?" asked Yasumichi.

"Someone who has lived here in the mansion for many years, sir," the old man answered nervously. "My father lived here before me, sire, and by now I have many children and grandchildren. They get into a lot of mischief, I'm afraid, and I'm always after them to stop, but they never listen. And now, sir, you're understandably fed up with us. I gather that you're going to kill us all. But I just want you to know, sir, how sorry I am that this is our last night of life. Won't you pardon us, one more time? If we ever make trouble again, then of course you must act as you think best. But the young ones, sir -- I'm sure they'll understand when I explain to them why you're so upset. We'll do everything we can to protect you from now on, if only you'll forgive us, and we'll be sure to let you know when anything good is going to happen!"

The old man bowed again and Yasumichi awoke. When the sky had lightened, he got up and looked outside. Under the tangerine tree sat a hairless old fox which, and the sight of him, slunk under the house.

The perplexed Yasumichi gave up his fox hunt. There was no more troublesome mischief, and every happy event around the house was announced by a fox's sharp bark.

Moral - This story teaches us to forgive others by giving them another chance to bask in your trust. When we do this with complete faith the blessings are countless...

Buddhism

"Buddhism has always been fond of parables and many of these were used by Buddha himself. As envisioned that, 'for men of good understanding will readily enough catch the meaning of what is taught under the shape of a parable as they are the pointing fingers to the gateway of spirituality.'"

A number of disciples went to the Buddha and said, "Sir, there are living here in Savatthi many wandering hermits and scholars who indulge in constant dispute, some saying that the world is infinite and eternal and others that it is finite and not eternal, some saying that the soul dies with the body and others that it lives on forever, and so forth. What, Sir, would you say concerning them?"

The Buddha answered, "Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, 'Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place all the men of Savatthi who were born blind... and show them an elephant.' 'Very good, sire,' replied the servant, and he did as he was told. He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant.

"When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, 'Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?'

"Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush.

"Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An elephant is not that!' 'Yes, it's like that!' and so on, till they came to blows over the matter.

"Brethren, the raja was delighted with the scene.

"Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."

Then the Exalted One rendered this meaning by uttering this verse of uplift,

O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.

Sikhism - True Story of Guru Nanak Ji

Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s father once sent Guru Nanak Dev Ji to graze buffaloes in the pastures. While grazing buffaloes, Guru Nanak Dev ji sat under a tree and started meditating on God. Meanwhile, the herd of buffaloes went into the neighboring farmer’s field and destroyed his crop. The farmer saw his crops getting damaged. He became furious and lodged a complaint with Rai Bular, the officer-in-charge of that area. Rai Bular came to inspect the fields, and to his astonishment, he found no damage was done to the crops; rather, the crops were blossoming. The place, at which this miracle took place, is known as Kiara Sahib.

On another occasion, Guru Nanak Dev Ji was sent to graze the buffaloes in the pastures and he fell asleep under the shade of a tree. As the sun rose higher, the shadow moved away. The rays of the hot summer sun began to fall on Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s face. A big cobra came at that place and provided shadow with its hood over the face of the Divine Master. Rai Bular was going through that area with his attendants. When he saw this strange scene, he was convinced that Guru Nanak Dev Ji is not an ordinary person. God had sent him to this world. Rai Bular then touched the Guru's feet in great reverence and thus became his disciple.

Treasure of Prophet Muhammad

She thought till late at midnight and finally decided how to take revenge from him. She could not sleep all night, because she was too eager to take revenge for the idols she worshiped. Even before the first ray of sunlight had entered her window, she was busy sweeping her house. She saved all the garbage in a basket, placed it on the roof of her house and proudly looked at it for a while, then with an impatient look on her face, she looked at the street that she lived on, and thought, "No one has ever seen him angry. Everybody will praise me when they will see him shouting at me and getting mad. They will laugh at him and make fun of him." She looked at the basket again and grinned.

Meanwhile, she heard footsteps, announcing the approach of the end of her waiting. "Finally my prey has arrived," she thought, as she saw a man dressed in clean, white clothes coming that way. She picked up the basket in her hands and threw all the garbage on him when he passed by. Much to the woman's disappointment, he did not say anything and continued on his way.

She did the same the following day thinking, "Maybe this time I will be able to annoy him." But he was too gentle to shout at a woman. She misinterpreted his attitude as fear and decided to repeat the same mischief everyday in order to keep him frightened, so that he might stop preaching the Oneness of God.

This gentleman whom the woman hated so much was Muhammad (pbuh), the last prophet of Allah Almighty. He did not want to disappoint the woman and so continued to walk down the street everyday, instead of picking an alternate route, and prayed for the woman to recognize the Truth.

One day, the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) did not find the woman to be on the roof of her house with the basket. This worried him, because he thought something must have happened to her for not being over there. So he knocked at the door. "Who is it?" asked a feeble voice. "Muhammad bin Abdullah," was the reply, "can I come in?" The woman feared, "I am sick, and too weak to fight or talk back, therefore Muhammad has come to take revenge for what I have been doing to him." But the permission to enter her house was in such a gentle voice that she allowed him in.

Muhammad (pbuh) entered the house and told the woman that not finding her on the roof had worried him and he thus wanted to inquire about her health. On finding out how ill she was, he gently asked if she needed any help. Hypnotized by the affectionate tone in the Holy Prophet's (pbuh) blessed voice, she forgot all fear and asked for some water. He kindly gave her some in a utensil and prayed for her health, while she quenched her thirst. This made her feel very guilty for being so cruel to him in the past and she apologized for her mean behavior. He forgave her and came to her house everyday to clean it, to feed her and to pray for her, till she was on her feet again. The kind attitude of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) inspired her into the recognition of the Truth, and his prayers were answered in the form of yet another addition into the growing number of Muslims.

Treasure from the Bible - Adam & Eve

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Now the serpent was crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat

All the days of your life.

 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”

 To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”

 And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”

The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Abstract Jigsaw

Very often we look at modern art that we don’t understand and think to ourselves, “I could have done this when I was a kid” or “My three year old makes paintings exactly like this one!” Well, all these reactions are very common where abstract art is concerned always leaving us a little above edge.

 To catch up on the tempo & mood of the artist. Abstract Art is an art which distorts figures and forms from their true appearance keeping very slight references to the original look of any object. When interpreting Abstract Art or any art for that matter; there is no fixed right or wrong way to understand it. Abstract Art has always evoked a gamut of emotions and reactions.

While trying to interpret, look beyond the canvas, the paints, and the colors. Do not focus on physical things such as an empty cave, the bright sun, or a racing car; but instead try to see the darkness, the energy, the brightness, and the speed that these things reflect.

To interpret abstract art give amiss to the title given to the work as you are not likely to find the title in the painting. You will see that its so much easier to understand what the painting has to offer, irrespective of what its name suggests.

Abstract art has many forms and manifestations. Expanded in the form of a painting or a blank canvas, could be some sculpture that is nowhere close to looking like what it should or a pair of sneakers that have been bronzed & put on a pedestal labelled as an abstract art.

Colors provoke emotions. Red is lively and confident; Green is peaceful with inner strength; Blue is deep and supernatural; Yellow could be warm, exciting, disturbing or totally bonkers; and White seems silent but full of possibilities.

Most of us believe that art has to be something that is beautiful. But that is not necessarily true. Art should be striking, compelling, provocative, inspiring, and should evoke emotions irrespective of what those emotions are. They could even be confusion and bewilderment, which is what Abstract Art usually evokes!

Lucian Freud “The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes & ironically the more real…”

Fortitude your discipline

Doing everything you’re supposed to do on schedule—can’t be what is meant by discipline. What is discipline then, if it’s not making yourself do all the stuff you know you’re supposed to do?

Walking on the path of Discipline without holding Buddha’s hand on it will be an in complete journey. His path is more about unlearning than learning so we can learn to uncover & unlearn to his light on his eight fold path which is also referred as steps.

The eight fold path is divided into three sections Wisdom, Ethical Conduct & Mental Discipline.

Wisdom Right View and Right Intention are the wisdom path. Right View is not about believing in doctrine, but in perceiving the true nature of ourselves and the world around us. Right Intention refers to the energy and commitment one needs to be fully engaged.

Ethical Conduct Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood are the ethical conduct path. This calls us to take care in our speech, our actions, and our daily lives to do no harm to others and to cultivate wholesomeness in ourselves.

Mental Discipline through Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration we develop the mental discipline to cut through delusion. Many schools of Buddhism encourage seekers to meditate to achieve clarity and focus of mind.

Discipline is not running around the clock to make sure you are ticking with it to every tick. Something to which you flow naturally the word forcefully does not exist in it you fall back to it willingly. Once you imbibe the above three your outer discipline will get merged with your inner.

By themselves, the Truths don't seem like much, I realize. But beneath the Truths are countless layers of teachings on the nature of existence. The point is not to just "believe in" the teachings, but to explore them, understand them, and test them against one's own experience. It is the process of exploring, understanding and realizing.

Build Borders Broader

Your environment sets the mood and tone for you. If you are living in an inspirational environment, you are going to be inspired every day. May be sometimes just playing up with your room can work towards your inspiration.  It’s not about having access to countless resources; it’s about exploiting the resources you have access to.

 Doing the same exact thing every day hinders self-growth.  If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.  Growth happens when you change things – when you try new things stretch beyond your comfort zone.

Blasting music is a turn off in turn a judicious noise level is the sweet spot for creativity. Ambient noise gets our creative juices flowing unlike silence. In high noise levels, our creative thinking is impaired because we’re overwhelmed struggling to process information efficiently. Whereas extreme quiet sharpens your focus, making it hard for us to think creatively.

An important point to remember when you’re optimizing for creativity is that the process of creative work goes through different stages. When I’m editing a blog post, for instance, I’m less worried about generating creative ideas than I am when I’m brainstorming topics or mapping out the structure of a post.

So optimizing your environment could call for different situations depending on the phase of work—e.g silence is best for concentration?

Research published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology looked at the difference in creativity levels in brightly-lit and dimly-lit environments. The research found that dim lighting helps us to feel less constrained and free to explore and take risks. So when you’re gearing up for a brainstorming session, try turning down the lights before you get started.

Love is the greatest source of inspiration. "At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet," said Plato. When you enjoy what you do, you like to think about it all the time. Someone else doesn't have to be wrong for you to be right.

Inventiveness

Inspiration and ideas often arise seemingly out of nowhere and then fail to show up when we most need them and creative thinking requires complex cognition yet is completely distinct from the thinking process.

Psychologically speaking, creative personalities are difficult to pin down, largely they're complex, paradoxical and tend to avoid routine. Creativity involves the coming together of a multitude of traits, behaviors and social influences in a single person.

The world is a creative person's oyster they see possibilities everywhere & are constantly taking in information that becomes fodder for creative expression.

Insatiably curious they generally opt to live through intense conversation or solitary mind-wandering, looking at the world around them & want to know why & how, it is the way it is.

Artists are often stereotyped as being loners, Solitude can be the key to producing their best work. You need to get in touch with that inner monologue to be able to express it. To be truly inspired, you must learn to trust your instinct & your creative empathy.

I have a magpie attitude to inspiration seek it from all sorts of sources anything that allows me to think about how culture comes together. I'm always on the lookout by observing people in the street; watching films, reading, thinking about the conversations that I have. I consider the language of gestures people use, or the colours they're wearing. It's about taking all the little everyday things & observing them with a critical eye than building on your mental scrapbook.

We live in a different but inspiring world, and there is so much out there that I want to record. However you cannot photograph everything, so I have to select subjects that throw light on the relationship I have with the world.

Creativity is the act of making something from nothing. 

Your art does not have to be between the covers of a book or on a canvas to find an audience. The art is about transcribing emotion. If you keep loose, feel spontaneous and free, so will your art. You’ll find deep satisfaction in sharing a part of yourself.

Shape yourself to shapes...

We live in a three-dimensional world. Every object you see or touch has three dimensions that can be measured into Length, Height & Width. The room where you are placed, your monitor you’re looking at & the clothes you are wearing all are three dimensional. Even you can be described by these three dimensions.

Geometry is the study of the size, shape and position of 2 dimensional & 3 dimensional figures. Everyone uses it daily consciously or unconsciously by exploring the spatial sense and geometric reasoning. Which in every turn is found in art, architecture, engineering, robotics, land surveys, astronomy, sculptures, space, nature, sports, machines, cars & in varied many more things which goes unnoticed.

What do you feel when you see a circle? A square? A triangle? Are you affected the same when seeing an object with soft gentle curves as you are when seeing another object with sharp jagged edges?  Lines & shapes have meaning which make them an important building block in the visual grammar and visual thinking we have at our disposal as designers.

Shapes have an endless variety of characteristics, each communicating different messages. Even if your page is nothing more than paragraphs of text you’re laying down shapes on the page.

Circles have no beginning or end. They represent the eternal whole having free movement. 

Squares and rectangles are stable. They have right angles and represent order, mathematics, rationality, and formality. The majority of text we read is set in rectangles or squares.

Triangles can be stable when sitting on their base or unstable when not. They represent direct tension, action, and aggression.

Spirals are expressions of creativity. They are often found in the natural growth pattern of many organisms and suggest the process of growth and evolution.

Crosses symbolize spirituality and healing. The 4 points of a cross represent self, nature, wisdom, and higher power or being. Crosses suggest transition, balance, faith, unity, temperance, hope, and life.

Curved shapes offer rhythm & movement, happiness, pleasure & generosity. They are seen as more feminine than sharp shapes which offer energy, violence and, anger. Sharp shapes are lively and youthful seen as more masculine.

Shapes can be used to convey depth by varying their size and position within a design. Larger shapes will appear closer and smaller shapes will appear further away. Shapes that are located lower in a design will seem closer and those higher up further away. Overlapping shapes is another way to create a sense of one in front of the other to add depth to your design.

Look around you observe shapes in designs & nature & think about what they make you feel or what they are communicating? Do they enhance or hinder the message of the designs you see?